Never Alone
by sunne
Summary: It's about Frank and Alice. It's about not being able to be there for those you love. It's about the fact that even if you feel you're alone, you never really are. Written for Finals Round 1 of the QLFC.


**Author's Note:** I am the Seeker for the Falmouth Falcons. This is written for Finals Round 1. My prompt is: Write about a player's OTP (Alice/Frank) and use An _italicized_ word or phrase for emphasis AND a simile in my story.

Never Alone

They hit the ground with force. The wizard sat up first, pressing a hand to his head, and looked around with confusion clouding his eyes.

"Alice?" He blinked to clear his eyes and turned over onto his hands and knees.

He groped about blindly, everything around him dark and cast in shadows. His fingers grabbed onto fabric and then the warmth of flesh.

"Alice?" It was her leg he had grabbed a hold of, and he shook it. She didn't respond. " _Alice?_ " Still nothing.

Panic gripped his throat and he reached forward for his wife's wrist. He found it and pressed his fingers into the pulse point, and relief flooded through him like an ocean, fast and all-consuming. Sitting back on his heels, he wiped at his face, pushing his glasses askew. He was just about to stand up to figure out where they were when a sound had him clutching at his wife again.

"Alice? Love, wake up."

A soft groan came from Alice, and he slipped his hand into hers and squeezed.

"I'm right here," he said.

She cracked her eyes open. "F-Frank?" Alice struggled to sit up. "What's going on?"

"Are you alright?" He took her head in his hands and peered closely at her face. His eyes had adjusted to the dimness and he could just make out her features. "Are you hurt?"

Alice closed her eyes and swayed slightly. She reached up and wrapped her fingers around Frank's arms. "What's happened?" she asked. "Is it the Death Eaters?"

Frank shook his head. "I don't know," he said. "I don't know what's happened or where we are." He stood up and reached down to help Alice to her feet.

Alice got up, her hands around her husband's arms as if he were all that was holding her up. It was dark, where they were, with barely enough light for them to see each other. Where that light was coming from was indiscernible. Alice remained very still and closed her eyes. Frank leaned towards her, offering her his support and gaining comfort from her presence.

"I feel hollow," she said into his chest, her hand pressed against her own.

Frank frowned at that.

Alice leaned in further. "I don't feel right." She pulled away slightly. "Do you feel that?"

He did. Frank hadn't noticed it until she'd said she felt hollow, but there was a distinct feeling of absence in his chest. It felt wrong. The more he worried at the strangeness, the stronger it became.

"What do you remember?" he asked her. "Right before waking up?"

Alice pressed her lips together. "Neville," she said, her voice a whisper as she sunk down to the ground. "Where's my baby?"

Frank stood frozen with his eyes wide. Neville. How could he have forgotten about his boy? What sort of a father was he that his son was not at the front of his thoughts? Down at his feet, Alice sobbed.

A thin, faint wail pierced through the darkness.

Alice's head shot up. " _Neville!_ " She was on her feet, rushing off through the darkness.

Frank followed after his wife, guilt shredding his insides, but there wasn't far to go. Four walls surrounded them with no ceiling, and they were shrouded in darkness. Alice pressed her hands against the wall and screamed.

The darkness of the wall cleared, lightening until it became almost translucent. Alice stopped and took a step back. A blurry figure could be seen moving on the other side of the wall. Frank pressed his face against it as the scene cleared.

"Mum." His voice was soft, a whisper in the darkness.

The window in the wall looked into Frank's mother's house. His mother paced from one side of the room to the other, a baby clutched in her arms. Her face was drawn and pale. She held the child in her arms as if he were the only thing keeping her tethered to reality. When she turned, they could see their son's face, mouth open in a scream.

Alice pressed in beside Frank. "Neville, baby. Mummy is right here." She pounded her fists on the wall. "I'm right here!"

"They can't hear us," Frank said. "We're not there."

The window into Augusta Longbottom's living room began to cloud over, growing darker and darker until it was just as dark as the rest of the room. Frank stepped away as Alice slid down to the ground, her face still pressed to the wall, begging to see her son again. The room they were in was small, three large steps from one side to the other. Frank moved to the other wall and pressed his hands against the opposite wall. Behind him, Alice continued to cry.

The wall before him began to clear, turning into another window.

"Alice," he said, turning to look at his wife.

She didn't respond.

Frank looked away and directed his attention at the new window. It revealed what Frank recognized as a ward in St. Mungo's. Healers and Medi-Witches rushed back and forth, unaware of their audience. A wizard in stripped pajamas wandered past, a crazed grin plastered across his face. Frank splayed his hands on the window and craned his neck around. The view shifted suddenly, and he swayed with a moment's vertigo. It settled, still in St. Mungo's, on a single room in the hospital. Twin beds were pulled close together and a man and woman lay in each bed.

A sick sense of horror crept up Frank's spine.

He turned to his wife. "Alice," he said, grabbing her arm to haul her to her feet.

Still weeping, Alice wiped at her eyes and looked through the window. "What?" she asked and paused. Her eyes flicked from one bed to the other. "Frank…" Her hand gestured to the two still figures in bed. "That—that's…"

"Us."

oOo

Neither Frank nor Alice had any recollection of what had transpired to end with them both in the dark room _and_ stuck in St. Mungo's. When Frank wasn't watching Neville, his attention was directed to his still form. It was him, that he knew, but the blank and vacant stare in his counterpart's face unsettled him.

"What do you suppose happened to us?" he asked Alice after a good amount of time had passed.

"Oh, look at him, Frank!" Alice grinned, hands pressed against the glass-like barrier on the other side of the room. She hadn't heard his question, or had ignored it, the latter being more likely. "He's getting so big."

On the other side of the barrier, Neville, now nearly five years old, followed his gran through Diagon Alley. He clutched Augusta's large handbag in both arms and scurried to dodge the swarms of people as his gran lead the way, her head held high. Frank watched his son, a haze of longing for something he'd lost clouding his eyes.

Alice glanced at her husband. "Were you saying something just now?"

"I was just wondering what had happened to us." He watched as his mother entered the Apothecary, the tall woman turning around and beckoning to her grandson with a sharp nod of her head.

"Again?" Alice sent a dark look at the other window in their small room and shook her head. "I don't want to think about that," she said, returning to watching her boy. "I want to watch Neville."

Frank sighed and placed a hand on his wife's back, rubbing just between her shoulder blades. "I feel like he's growing too fast."

oOo

Time passed differently where Frank and Alice were, speeding up and slowing down at intervals that made no sense to either of them. One moment, Neville was five-years-old and following in his Gran's footsteps, and the next moment he was boarding the Hogwarts Express for the first time.

"He's going to lose his grip on that toad," Frank said, watching as Neville struggled to hold onto the wiggling creature.

Alice tutted and shook her head. "Love, put your toad in its enclosure," she said as if the eleven-year-old could hear her. She stood leaning against the divide, hand splayed against the glass.

Beside her, Frank craned his neck. "Alice, look." He pointed off to the side. "Is that James and Lily's son?"

Leaning into her husband, Alice watched as a thin, black-haired boy crossed through onto Platform 9 ¾. "Well, look at that." She glanced at Frank. "Do you remember what they named him?"

"Well, sure, they named him—" Frank scratched at the back of his head and looked at the boy heaving his trunk across the platform. He should know the boy's name; he was certain of it. Shaking his head, he turned to his wife. "I don't remember," he said.

Alice was watching Neville again. "Oh, there goes the toad!"

Frank looked and watched as Neville scrambled for the creature as he boarded the train, but it got away. "Doesn't it bother you that we don't remember his name?" he asked, his eyes shifting from his son to the black-haired boy. The other boy stood as if lost on the platform, eyes flicking back and forth. Frank wondered if he was looking for something.

oOo

Frank often had moments where he wondered if they were in purgatory. Alice dismissed the idea, refusing to discuss the why and how of where they was no other explanation for their situation, watching their son grow from a rambunctious toddler into a timid school boy. It pained Frank to watch his boy struggle at school. He knew Neville was more than what he thought he was, and he descended into screaming rages as Frank watched Neville's Potions professor intimidate and ridicule his son. Frank knew with a sick twist of his gut that he knew the man with the greasy hair, but he couldn't find his name.

"You are more than what he says," Frank said, face pressed against the divide between them. He was crouched down on the floor, his son so close he could almost touch him. He was in his third year and growing out of his boyish looks.

Neville sat in an empty stairwell, scrolls of Potions notes dumped on the steps beside him and his Potions text in a heap against the wall where he'd thrown it earlier. He wiped at his eyes, shoulders rounded.

"You are a Longbottom. You are brave and fearless." Emotion welled in Frank's chest painfully. "You just don't know it yet."

Neville looked up and turned his head, and for a moment Frank thought his boy had heard him. However, a girl with bushy brown hair descended the steps. She picked up the book, smoothed out the pages, and handed it back to Neville. The girl said something and placed a hand on Neville's shoulder. Neville glanced up at her with indecision in his eyes, but he stood and followed her back up the steps. Frank closed his eyes, hand pressed against the glass as if he could transfer his love through to his son.

"He has friends." Alice squeezed Frank's hand.

"I know," he said, but it wasn't enough. Knowing his son had friends didn't take away the pain in his gut at watching his son ridiculed. He glanced at the other wall where he and his wife were currently staring out a window, eyes blank and faces vacant. Frank needed to be there for Neville, but that was impossible.

oOo

Frank and Alice witnessed over the next few years as Neville's friendships fostered the growth of his courage and bravery. In Neville's fifth year, they watched as their son's friends formed a defense group. Frank's heart throbbed with pride as Neville grew and improved. However, the end of Frank and Alice's torment at watching their son suffer did not end for courage and bravery often brought conflict.

"I can't watch," Alice said, face pressed into Frank's side. "Please tell me he's okay."

"He's okay." Frank forced his voice to remain steady as he watched as Neville and the Potter boy were cornered by Death Eaters.

They were in the Department of Mysteries, that Frank could determine, but he couldn't fathom why. His eyes shifted back to the Death Eater doing most of the talking, and he wondered why the dark pleasure in her eyes seemed familiar. When she raised her wand and pointed it at Neville, Frank gave a guttural cry.

Alice's head shot up. "What?"

Frank covered her eyes, pressing her face into his shoulder. "Don't look."

"Is he okay?"

"Just don't look." Frank gritted his teeth as his wife sobbed. He turned to his boy on the other side of the barrier. "I'm here, Neville." Frank swallowed. "I'm right here."

He wanted to look away, wanted to look at anything other than his boy being tortured, but he wouldn't. Frank wouldn't abandon Neville when he needed him the most. So, he watched.

oOo

Alice leaned against the barrier, her eyes trailing Neville as he walked down a corridor. He was in his sixth year and had grown nearly a head taller over the summer. Behind her, Frank paced in a short rhythm. She glanced at Frank. "Will you just stop?"

Frank pulled at his hair, his face lined with distress. "I can't," he said, but came to a stop nonetheless. "How can you not see?"

"I've seen plenty," she said, turning back to watch her son. "I don't need anymore."

Watching his son tortured had unlocked something, a memory, in Frank's mind. "The Cruciatus," he said.

" _No_ , Frank," Alice said.

"I think I remember."

Alice hugged herself. "Stop."

"We were tortured," he said. "It went far beyond—"

His wife spun around and screamed, her face pale. "No, Frank. I don't remember, and I don't _want_ to remember."

Frank froze for a moment, startled by his wife's outburst. Though he saw Alice's distress, he couldn't let it go. "Don't you want to know what happened to them—to _us_?"

"I don't want to talk about them. I don't want to look at them—" She flung a hand at the other window, "—and I certainly don't want to think about them." She tapped her hands against the glass in front of her. "I'm here for him, for our son."

"I—" Frank stopped and shook his head. He turned to the window that looked in on St. Mungo's. On the other side of the room, his wife wrapped her arms around herself, distancing herself from him. Frank's heart felt wrung out. Slowly, he slid down the wall and sat on the floor.

They remained as such for a long time—Alice shut down and Frank shut out—until finally Alice turned around.

"I'm sorry," she said.

He looked up at her, the movement slow. "Me too."

oOo

Neville walked down one of the lesser used corridors at Hogwarts. He stepped over a pile of stone rubble, hand pressed against the wall to steady himself on the loose rocks. The final battle had been fought and won hours ago, and this was the first moment Neville had to himself. He had thought he would feel proud or happy that the war was over and Voldemort had been defeated. Instead, he felt tired and overwhelmed.

Turning a corner, he continued down a section of the corridor devoid of any damage. If Neville turned his back on the destruction behind him, he could almost pretend that nothing had happened. Easing himself down, he leaned his back against the wall and closed his eyes. A dozen pains welled up in his body, and he covered his face and groaned.

And then it happened, as it often had throughout his life, and Neville found himself smiling.

There was no way he could explain the moments when he felt their presence or why he knew it was them. All Neville knew was that he never was and never had been alone.


End file.
